Declan walked over to the side, where a watery control panel protruded from the dome. "The willworld is a simulator. It lets you study the progress of civilization and see how it might develop. You control the world. You can make it rain or you can cause a drought. Here." He turned a dial.
Water rose within the dome, streaming over the fields. The foxes climbed atop the huts. He turned the dial the other way, and the waters fled.
Declan tapped the keys. The inside of the dome swirled and formed a small white-walled city with gardens and carved white towers. "This is a standard city, a kind of default. Everything is going well. There is plenty of food, the weather is mild, and the civilization prospers."
Georgie watched the city for a few minutes. Tiny foxes in bright robes lectured before their students in the gardens, strolled through the marketplace, and danced in a square while two other foxes played oddly shaped instruments.
Declan pressed another key.
"See this sign?" He pointed to a horizontal double loop in a small window. "I just set their generation length to infinity. They are now immortal. They can kill each other, but they won't die of natural causes. I also sped things up a little, so we don't spend all night watching a single scenario. Now this city is stored within the willworld. Anytime you wish to return to it, push this button right here and the world will be reset."
For the first few minutes nothing happened. Then the city began to grow. It filled the fields, spreading, sprawling, growing higher and higher. In twenty minutes the city completely swallowed the dome. Streets became tunnels. Towers turned into tall contraptions. Creatures stumbled about in crowded streets. The city had grown filthy and dark, its buildings decrepit.
"What's happening?" George whispered.
"Overpopulation. There are too many of them. There is not enough food or space. The old ones won't die, and they keep making more children."
In thirty minutes, the creatures began falling on the streets, crawling through the filth, searching for scraps of food. Declan reached to reset the dome.
"No. I want to see," George said.
"It won't be pretty," Declan warned.
"I understand."
Declan let it go.
Fires broke out. The creatures formed gangs and began ripping each other apart, feeding on the severed limbs.
George stumbled away from the dome and closed his eyes.
"Are you unwell?" Declan asked.
Georgie shook his head. They ate each other. The little foxes ate each other.
"Let us continue then. Take two."
George looked at the dome in time to see the darkness swirl. The perfect little city reappeared.
Five minutes into it, one of the foxes began to cough. The cough spread, first to the neighbors, then farther, engulfing the entire city.
"The plague," Declan explained. "They're sick, but they can't die. Sometimes death is the only way to stop the spread of infection. This sickness can't quite kill them, but there is no cure."
They watched the foxes shamble about in the dark, coughing in misery. When they started falling from exhaustion, George asked him to reset the dome.
The third try went well for the first ten minutes, and George began to have hope, until a group of older foxes started smashing the new building with sticks.
"Why are they doing that?" Georgie asked.
"They don't want the city to change," Declan said. "They've realized that if they keep growing, they'll run out of space."
Five minutes later, some foxes were chained, marched to the lake, and forced into the water.
"Why?" Georgie whispered, watching them drown.
"They are probably the ones who wanted the city to grow. The others must have decided that the population should remain the same. The city can only support so many foxes. This is their way of controlling it."
"But . . ." George bit his lip, as the foxes brought out little fox babies and one by one threw them into the lake. That was just about enough of that. He marched to the control panel and hit a reset button.
Declan straightened. "I'm going to go inside now. You know how to reset the dome back to default. The spell will probably hold through the night, but I doubt we'll get more than twelve, fifteen hours from it, so if you want to run it a bit more, best to do it now."
GEORGIE felt Rose's arms close about him. She hugged him. "It's almost midnight. You should come inside."
He shook his head. "It's okay," he said, staring at the dome. "A little longer."
"Declan and I decided to sleep on the porch tonight to keep an eye on you. If you run into any trouble, you come and get one of us, okay?"
George glanced back. On the porch, Declan and Grandma were arranging some blankets.
"Okay," he said, reaching to the control panel. If he reset it just one more time, maybe it would be fine. It had to be fine. There had to be a way for it to end well.
ROSE awoke when the first hint of sunrise colored the sky. Georgie sat on the steps, hugging his knees. She stirred. At the other end of the porch, Declan's eyes snapped open. He looked at her from above the back of a small lynx who curled by his side. Jack must've taken off his bracelet in the night. Probably to keep an eye on his brother.
Rose untangled herself from the blankets and went to sit by Georgie.
"How long did you stay up?"
"The whole time."
She glanced at the pool. A beautiful city shimmered within the dome. Declan had explained the concept to her last night, while she trimmed his hair so it didn't look lopsided. She had watched Georgie from the window for about an hour, while Grandma hemmed and hawed and threw up her hands in disgust trying to trim Rose's own butchered hair into some semblance of a decent haircut. In that hour, Georgie had cried twice. Rose had desperately wanted to go and comfort him. But her sympathy would do more harm than good. Something profound was happening to Georgie, and he had to go through it alone.
Now, as he sat next to her, he seemed older. Somber and almost grim.
"It went wrong every time." He wouldn't look at her.
"The city looks fine now," she said.
"That's because I let them die. I set the dial back to fifty years. I had to. There was no other way."
She hugged him and kissed his hair.
"Life is so precious because it's short," she said. "Even the most resilient people are fragile. Life isn't about dying or not dying. It's about living well, George. Living so you can be proud and happy."
Georgie hunched his shoulders.
"I'm ready," he said. "I just want to see them all. For the last time."